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McNish handed new lease of life at Renault

By Kevin Eason

January 10 2003, 12:00am, The Times

ALLAN McNISH’S hasty departure from Formula One has turned out to be short-lived and he will be at next season’s 16 grands prix after all, although not in racing. Renault announced yesterday that they are one of three teams who will use the offer of a two-hour test session before each race meeting in 2003 and have hired McNish as their chief test driver.

The testing deal was one of the ideas put forward to save teams money and means that they can field up to four drivers, including guest drivers, in the test session before official practice and qualifying on Friday. That opened up a seat for McNish, unceremoniously dumped along with Mika Salo after only a season at Toyota.